PARKWAYS PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE THE CAPPER-CRAMTON ACT OF 1930 A TEXTBOOK EXAMPLE OF PARKWAY DESIGN MORE THAN A ROADWAY Driving George Washington Memorial Parkway from end to By the 1920s, Great Falls and the Potomac Palisades were Like its predecessor, George Washington Memorial Parkway George Washington Memorial Parkway is more than just an end provides a thorough lesson in twentieth-century scenic threatened not just by quarrying, but by a private power was heralded as a model for state-of-the-art parkway design. attractive roadway. The original commemorative function EUKGU'WATS IN ilAliiVlOilY highway design. Beginning at Mount Vernon, one company's plans to build hydroelectric dams above and While Mount Vernon Memorial Highway was built for remains strong, as civic and military memorials continue to progresses from a narrow, winding, largely undivided below the falls. To prevent this danger, conservationists, motorists traveling at 35-45 mph, postwar parkway designers be added to the parkway landscape. These range from concrete roadway to the wider traffic lanes, more generous historical associations, and civic groups worked with calculated for speeds of 50-60 mph. traditional bronze statues such as "Iwo Jima" and the curves, and continuous medians near National Airport. Representative Louis C. Cramton and Senator Arthur Capper monuments lining the approach to Arlington Cemetery to North of Washington, the motorist encounters the sweeping to secure passage of a bill authorizing the creation of George abstract modernist sculptures and groves of memorial trees. curves, widely separated road alignments, and soaring steel Washington Memorial Parkway as an elongated regional The parkway also offers a variety of recreational and concrete bridges of postwar parkway construction. park stretching along both sides of the Potomac River opportunities. Its picnic areas and marinas continue to be George Washington Crossing the Potomac on the Capital Beltway to reach Clara between Great Falls and Mount Vernon. enormously popular with tourists and locals alike. A multi- Barton Parkway provides a stark reminder of the usual Parkway Construction near Key Bridge, 1949 (DCL) President Eisenhower opening parkway to Langley, 1959 (DCL) use trail was built between Washington and Mount Vernon course of late-twentieth century American highway Postcard view of Great Falls, (ca. 1900) A parkway drive similar to Mount Vernon Memorial in the 1970s and extended north to Rosslyn in the 1980s. Memorial Parkway Reconstruction near Spout Run, 1993 (HAER/Davis) development and underscores the skill and foresight of the Highway would follow the Maryland shoreline. Existing GEORGE WASHINGTON MEMORIAL PARKWAY The northern portions of George Washington Memorial As a wildlife refuge, the parkway serves as a permanent or Virginia, Maryland, Washington D.C. parkway's original designers. GREAT FALLS AND THE POTOMAC PALISADES roads would be used on most of the Virginia side to avoid Parkway were mostly built in the 1950s-1960s. The longest temporary home to a wide variety birds and mammals. The costly construction along the Palisades. A proposed bridge George Washington Memorial Parkway was an ambitious CHANGE AND CONTINUITY parkway also preserves many important historical features, Great Falls has been a popular tourist destination since section, between Spout Run and Langley, Virginia, was at Great Falls and a ferry between Fort Washington and Fort undertaking. Along with the technical difficulties involved including Washington's Patowmack Canal, Arlington House George Washington's time. Along with the dramatic natural officially opened by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1959. George Washington Memorial Parkway retains its original Hunt would allow motorists to make a grand loop tour of the in constructing roadways along the rugged banks of the and the remains of several Civil War forts. scenery, the Patowmack Canal, which Washington built character to a considerable degree, but it has undergone a region's natural and historic features. This aspect of the plan Potomac, the project required close cooperation between During the 1930s, parkways were seen as ideal ways to around the falls in the 1790s, was considered an engineering number of changes to accommodate shifting public demands was eventually shelved, but new bridge-building technologies federal, state, and local agencies. The National Park Service combine recreational development, scenic preservation, and marvel, attracting visitors from around the world. and growing traffic burdens. enabled parkway designers to route the parkway along the assumed overall responsibility, with the BPR again lending traffic relief. By the 1960s, however, high-speed motorways Washington's canal was short-lived, but its successor, the Virginia palisades. its road-building expertise. Funding problems plagued the were generally regarded as incompatible with natural Donaldson Run Bridge, 1994 (HABS/Boucher) The construction of National Airport required a major Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, provided nineteenth-century parkway throughout its development, which continued in fits resource protection. Preservationists played an important relocation of the original Mount Vernon Memorial Highway, excursionists with a popular and relaxing method of reaching and starts for almost forty years. role in preventing the parkway's roads from extending all the Postwar sections have longer, more sweeping curves, which passed near the site of today's Metro station. The the falls and enjoying the surrounding woodlands. way north to Great Falls, as originally planned. While the By the late 1940s, the parkway had only been extended as continuous safety medians, and soaring concrete bridges section between the airport and 1-395 was later expanded to Construction of electric trolley lines to Great Falls and Glen National Park Service acquired most of the Potomac far north as Spout Run. An extra arch was added to Key spanning the steep ravines of the Potomac Palisades. Access six lanes to accommodate increased traffic. Traffic concerns Echo at the beginning of the twentieth century made the shoreline between Washington and Great Falls, road Bridge to accommodate the parkway drive at Rosslyn. The was even more strictly controlled through cloverleafs and also forced parkway officials to update the circulation falls and the Potomac Palisades even more accessible. construction stopped at the Capital Beltway on the Virginia Spout Run Bridge, completed in 1959 to carry southbound bridges. Variable-width medians and different alignments pattern on Columbia Island and, most recently, to widen the side and just north of the Beltway in Maryland. The Fort traffic on the main parkway, provides a striking example of for north- and southbound traffic allowed designers to fit the parkway between Spout Run and Theodore Roosevelt Unfortunately, the Palisades were also accessible to stone- Navy and Marine Memorial (HAER/Davis) GEORGE WASHINGTON MEMORIAL PARKWAY Washington leg was abandoned for economic and political parkway more closely to the terrain and helped preserve Memorial Bridge. The National Park Service's concern for WASHINGTON RRGION the artistic possibilities of modern concrete bridge design. quarrying operations, which threatened to reduce the FROM MOUNT VKRNON. PAST THK CITY OF WASHINGTON reasons. The final road segment, between Chain Bridge and TO GRKAT PALLS attractive natural scenery. The area north of Key Bridge maintaining the parkway's visual character can be seen in the imposing cliffs to rubble by the end of the nineteenth the Maryland border, was opened in 1970. was considered one of the best examples of postwar hand-laid stone facings on the extensive concrete guard walls century. The 1901 Senate Park Commission urged Congress parkway design. Images of this stretch appeared in required by modern safety regulations. to preserve the Palisades and develop a series of winding numerous highway engineering textbooks. parkways along the banks of the Potomac between Washington and Great Falls.

George Washington Memorial Parkway was documented in Senate Park Commission Report (1902) 1993-94 by the Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record (HABS/HAER), a division of the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. The project was sponsored by the NPS Park Roads and Parkways Program. Measured drawings, large-format photographs, and written history are available to the public through the HABS/HAER collection at the Library of Congress. George Washington Memorial Parkway Proposal, 1930 (NARA) Spout Run, 1968 (CF'At'Alexander) Clara Barton Parkway, 1993 (HAER/Davis) This leaflet was produced by the Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record, a division of the George Washington Memorial Parkway, 1946 (NARA) National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, in 1785 1828 1800s 1901 1920s 1930 1940s 1959 1962 1964 1970 1989 conjunction with the National Preservation Institute. George Washington Construction starts on Stone quarried from Senate Park Hydroelectric dams Capper-Cramton Act Parkway constructed Parkway extended to Capital Beltway (I-495) Road on Man/land side Final section of parkway Maryland roadway Text by Timothy Davis forms Patowmack Chesapeake and Ohio Potomac Palisades Commission urges proposed near Great authorizes George past Rosslyn to Spout Langley, Virginia serves as northern reaches current terminus road completed between segment renamed Clara Company to build canal Canal protection of Great Falls Falls Washington Memorial Run Multi-use trail (HAER/Davis) LBJ Memorial (HAER/Davis) Design by Timothy Davis/Todd Croteau terminus of parkway just north of Beltway Chain Bridge and Barton Parkway U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR around Great Falls and Potomac Palisades Parkway Looking North from Key Bridge, 1953 (NARA) drive in Virginia Maryland border Stone-covered concrete guardwa.il, 1993 (HAER/Davis) NATIONAL PARK SERVICE A NATIONAL ROAD TO MOUNT VERNON While these early proposals had little immediate effect, they A MODEL PARKWAY AMERICA'S MOST MODERN MOTORWAY LANDSCAPE DESIGN PARKWAY BRIDGES laid the groundwork for the creation of Mount Vernon The first proposal for a national road from Washington to George Washington Memorial Parkway is an important Memorial Highway and George Washington Memorial When it was completed in January 1932, Mount Vernon Mount Vernon Memorial Highway's designers went to great Most of the original parkway bridges were reinforced Mount Vernon originated with a group of Alexandria landmark in the history of American park development and Parkway. The exuberant patriotic rhetoric was eventually Memorial Highway was widely praised as "America's Most lengths to produce an attractive, naturalistic parkway concrete structures faced with rough-cut stone for a more businessmen during the 1880s. Mixing patriotism with local highway design. The parkway serves as a memorial to the toned down, but historic and commemorative concerns Modern Motorway." Highway engineers, planners, and the landscape. For most of its length, the parkway was built traditional appearance. Each bridge was given a slightly boosterism, the Mount Vernon Avenue Association lobbied nation's first president, preserves invaluable historic, strongly influenced twentieth-century parkway designers. popular press celebrated the parkway as the ultimate blend on an entirely new alignment through largely undeveloped different design to accommodate local conditions and recreational and natural resources along the Potomac River, the federal government to build a grand formal boulevard of modern engineering, landscape architecture, historic terrain. The roadway followed the landscape's natural provide picturesque variety. This was standard procedure and performs a vital role in the transportation system of the lined with imposing statues and memorials. The proposed preservation, and patriotic sentiment. contours, winding in gentle curves through attractive for parkway design in the 1920s-1930s. Railroad regulations nation's capital. It contains over 7,000 acres of park land avenue would follow the high ground between Arlington woodlands and along the banks of the Potomac River. stipulated steel construction, so parkway designers arched and almost 40 miles of scenic roadways. The parkway also Cemetery and Mount Vernon, providing panoramic views of the railroad overpass's steel girders to harmonize with the encompasses a variety of recreational facilities, two wildlife the surrounding countryside and avoiding the marshes and Old Mt. Vernon Road near Gum Springs, 1930 (NARA) Parkway designers took advantage of the region's natural other parkway bridges. The exposed concrete and steel refuges, numerous historic sites, and an array of civic and estuaries of the Potomac River. Each state would be granted beauty to produce a richly varied landscape. Towering spans of the parkway's later bridges exemplify modernist military memorials. a section to decorate with monuments honoring its most MOUNT VERNON MEMORIAL HIGHWAY hardwood forests alternate with broad grassy areas accented Rustic features. Belle Haven, 1932 (NARA) aesthetics and engineering concerns. famous citizens. Statues of presidents and vice-presidents with clumps of eastern red cedar and occasional dogwoods. George Washington Memorial Parkway was built in stages would line the roadway near Arlington Cemetery. The first automobile tourists arrived at Mount Vernon in Existing forests were selectively cut to improve growth and Guard rails and bus shelters were designed in rustic fashion between 1929 and 1970. The first segment, Mount Vernon Supporters cast the avenue as "an American Appian Way or 1904, taking six hours to make the round trip from provide sweeping vistas. Intimate woodland scenes give to harmonize with the parkway landscape. Ornate metal Memorial Highway, stretches from Arlington Memorial Westminster Abbey" that would remind Americans of their Washington. By the mid 1920s, Mount Vernon was way to extensive views over the Potomac River. Subtle Mount Vernon in 1886 (Harper's Weekly) lamp posts were used nearer Washington for a more formal Bridge to Mount Vernon and was completed in 1932. As noblest achievements and inspire future generations to even inundated with motorists, who were forced to make their curves were added to direct the motorist's vision and spare appearance. The wood light poles were taken down years the first modern motorway built by the federal government, greater heights of civic and military glory. way through crowded commercial districts, over hazardous attractive stands of older trees. North of Alexandria, the Proposed parkway route at Gravelly Point, ago, but several original metal fixtures remain. beginning of dredge and fill operation, 1930 (NA) it popularized advanced highway engineering and landscape MOUNT VERNON: "THE AMERICAN MECCA" railroad crossings, around dangerous curves, and along parkway's memorial intent was reinforced by its alignment design features and strongly influenced parkway and narrow, poorly maintained roads. Billboards, gas stations with the Washington Monument. The landscape near Mount Vernon was a popular tourist destination long before ENGINEERED FEATURES highway construction throughout the country. and other unsightly developments lined U.S. Route 1, which Memorial Bridge was left open to provide an impressive the invention of the automobile. Many visitors journeyed to Mt. Vernon Avenue Association (1913) served as the main approach to Mount Vernon. panorama of Washington's distinctive skyline. The riverfront location helped cut down on intersections and The northern sections of George Washington Memorial Mount Vernon during Washington's lifetime. Tourist traffic THE ELECTRIC RAILWAY offered excellent opportunities for park development, but it Parkway were mostly completed in the 1950s-1960s and increased after his death in 1799, as the estate passed Seeking to remedy these conditions in time for the required the construction of numerous bridges and over two- were also considered masterful examples of parkway design. through the hands of various relatives and gradually fell into nationwide celebration of the bicentennial of Washington's Construction of the Washington, Alexandria & Mount and-a-half miles of artificial causeway. Large sections of The roads in these later sections are distinguished by their disrepair. It was purchased by the Mount Vernon Ladies' birth in 1932, Congress authorized the construction of Mount Vernon Electric Railway between 1892 and 1896 side­ the parkway near Hunting Creek and between Washington broader width, continuous medians, more sweeping curves, Association in 1858, restored, and officially opened to the Vernon Memorial Highway in May 1928. The Bureau of tracked the avenue project and dealt the original avenue Cloverleaf, Fourteenth Street Bridge, 1932 (NARA) and National Airport are built entirely on landfill dredged and soaring concrete bridges. In 1989 the Maryland road public. The trip became more popular after the Civil War, Public Roads (BPR) was tasked with designing an attractive association a blow from which it never recovered. from the bottom of the Potomac River. segment was renamed Clara Barton Parkway in honor of the when regular steamboat service from Washington enabled The trolley was cheap, convenient, and enormously popular, and efficient parkway that would accommodate the rapidly founder of the American Red Cross, whose house is visitors to bypass the region's notoriously poor roads. immediately replacing the steamboat as the preferred means growing tourist and commuter traffic while preserving IMPROVED CIRCULATION Most of the original highway surface was composed of Colonial-style signs and concession buildings contributed to preserved near the parkway at Glen Echo. of visiting Mount Vernon. Local riders also used it to scenery, linking sites associated with Washington's life, and reinforced concrete slabs, but flexible asphalt was used on Nineteenth-century Americans regarded Mount Vernon as a The original intersection at the south end of the Fourteenth the parkway's historical character. Patriotic groups placed a commute to Washington and picnic along the Potomac River. providing recreational opportunities along the Potomac filled land to avoid cracking when the excavated material national shrine. The journey to Mount Vernon was cast as shoreline. Street Bridge was the first cloverleaf built by the federal number of memorial trees and tablets along the parkway and settled. In Alexandria, the concrete pavement was covered a patriotic pilgrimage that would improve the visitor's government and one of the earliest in the United States. at the Mount Vernon terminus, where a bronze tablet with blacktop. These distinctions can still be seen on today's character and strengthen the nation by fostering greater Mt. Vernon Avenue Association (1913) Along with commemorating Washington and serving Mount Cloverleafs were considered an important innovation because commemorates the parkway's completion. parkway. The unstable fill also required innovative planting appreciation for the ideas, events, and values of the early Vernon-bound motorists, the BPR saw the project as an they enabled major roadways to cross without stop signs or techniques and strongly braced bridge construction at republic. Popular magazines and tourist guidebooks Congress ignored the more grandiose aspects of this opportunity to demonstrate the principles of modern highway dangerous left-hand turns. They were expensive to construct Boundary Channel and other stream crossings. recounted the lore and legend of Mount Vernon and the proposal, but in 1889 it ordered the Army Corps of design. Together with New York's Bronx River Parkway, and required a great deal of land, so parkway designers surrounding area, celebrating Alexandria as Washington's Engineers to study the possibility of linking Washington and Mount Vernon Memorial Highway helped popularize such experimented with a variety of simpler intersection layouts "home town" and characterizing the old estate as "the Mount Vernon with a formal, tree-lined boulevard. The features as limited-access construction with widely spaced to improve safety and traffic flow. Nation's Shrine," "The Mecca of America," and "The Home engineers produced detailed surveys for several alternate exits and entrances; overpasses to eliminate danger and and Tomb of the Immortal Washington." Senator Leland routes, along with plans for bridges and landscape treatment. congestion at major interchanges; broad, tree-lined right-of- Tear-drop shaped traffic islands, rotaries, and staggered Stanford captured the spirit of the era, declaring it "a sacred The 1901 Senate Park Commission also endorsed the idea of ways to enhance safety and beauty; and careful integration entrances were used to "streamline" circulation at minor duty of all Americans to visit Mount Vernon, as they leave a national road to Mount Vernon, but provided no specific of the roadway with the surrounding terrain to highlight intersections, but extended merging lanes and broad that sacred spot purer and more patriotic American citizens." suggestions for landscape development. attractive views and make driving safer, easier, and more continuous medians were not yet considered essential. Electric Railway near Dyke Marsh, 1930 (NARA) appealing. Transplanting eastern red cedar. 1930 (NARA)

1761 1790 1799 1858 1888 1890 1892 1901 1904 1920s 1928 1929 1932 1940 1970s Over 250,000 trees and shrubs were planted between 1929 Illustration credits: historic photographs courtesy of National George Washington Congress establishes Washington dies and is Mount Vernon Ladies' Mount Vernon Avenue U.S. Army Corps of Electric railway Senate Park First automobile tourists American automobile Congress authorizes Mount Vernon Memorial Mount Vernon Memorial Parkway relocated for Mount Vernon multi-use and 1932 alone. Native species predominated and planting Archives and Records Administration (NARA), District of District of Columbia buried at Mount Vernon Association purchases inherits Mount Vernon Association formed to Engineers conducts constructed between Commission endorses arrive at Mount Vernon ownership rises from memorial boulevard Highway construction Highway completed construction of National trail constructed plans were designed for a natural appearance, so that Columbia Public Library (DCL), and Commission of Fine Arts Aerial Views of Mount Vernon Memorial Highway (L) and estate. Roads in poor promote national road to survey for national road Alexandria and Mount national road to 8,000 in 1900 to between Washington begins Airport motorists could not tell where the parkway ended and the (CFA); HABS/HAER photographs by Jack Boucher, Jet Lowe George Washington Memorial Parkway (R), 1994 condition. Most tourists Mount Vernon to Mount Vernon Vernon; extended to Mount Vernon 8 million in 1920 and 22 and Mount Vernon Woodland Vallex Overlook. 1930 & 1932 (NARA) (HABS/Boucher) travel by steamboat. Washington in 1896 million in 1930 surrounding woodlands began. Paving near Capital Overlook, 1931 (NARA) and Timothy Davis; HAER bridge drawings by Michael Gala.